Windigo

The Windigo is a malefic creature of the Amerindian folklore of North America.

In the depths of the forest, exist tales which would make tremble most courageous of the men, of tales of the supernatural, inhuman and atrocious things.

Among all these stories, a creature seems to haunt forever the large ones and deep forests of its malefic print, the Windigo .

The word which describes the creature is not a proper name because there remains fuzzy and corresponds to several creatures, Windigo is actually a kind of reference. The word itself spells various manners according to the periods and within the various Indian tribes:

Wendigo;
Windigo;
Windago;
Wetiko;
…

The legend of Windigo is well-known among the tribes speaking the Algonquin in America. No " Monster " or " mauvais" spirit; do not evoke such a superstitious fear at the Indians.

The legend changes in the details, but its contour remained basically always the same one: the hunters or the people lost who remained too a long time in the state of famine (particularly during the winter), turning to the Cannibalisme like last resource, will become windigos or will be inhabited by its spirit and will have ineluctably to eat other people. Their characters know deep transformations and those tend towards an antisocial character and violent one and will see himself little by little controlling by the spirit and the horrible appetite of the windigo which lives in them.

It is thought that the only manner of killing a windigo is to burn the body of its host in ash.

As one said previously, the legend changes in the details according to the manner of changing or of being inhabited by a windigo. This transformation can precede the curse by a Chaman or be the resultant of a bite of windigo.

The majority of the tales mention that the windigo is actually a kind of ogre or dreadful giant which grows with each victim that it devours. However, those are not immortal and can be killed various ways, in which most effective would seem to be a silver ball, as reports it many tales and Indian legends.

In general, Windigo is associated particularly with the winter, when food is done rare and that the men are more thorough with the Cannibalisme in the event of great famine or food shortage. The majority of the tales indicate that the windigo made its appearance at the time of the rise of the cold high winds of winter, pushing piercing cries and other terrible howls. Some even claim that the windigo is made of ice and cold, or at least its heart. Although the majority of the tales presented the windigo as being cannibal, dangerous and violent one, the “host” can still try to live far from civilization, major in wood, to prevent whoever from being his next victim. Some Windigo-lived people would even commit suicide to avoid wounding somebody.

However the phenomenon of the windigo became more than one simple myth, certain psychologists name “Psychosis of the windigo” the fact for a patient of showing signs of cannibalistic tendencies and showing a violent and antisocial behavior.

But should Windigo be classified like cryptid? It seems thus. According to all that we know about the subject, there would exist three categories of Windigo; we saw two up to now: a bad spirit which haunt most of the time wood subarctic in the search of a host center (host) to help it to satisfy its physical desire of human flesh, and a psychosis whose patients show signs relating to the cannibalism and have an antisocial behavior. The third type is a kind of creature hominidée, large, slightly like Sasquatch. It seems to be night, because one says of him that it seeks its victims during the paddle and devours them in the darkness. The flesh could be its principal mode, but it is said that he eats wood, foams of marsh and sometimes of putrefied mushrooms. The windigo is thus firmly anchored in the spirit of the Indian legends and holds an important place in the American folklore. Many places and lakes bear its name, the such National park of Windigo.

To conclude, that it are a supernatural demon of the wood, the spirit of the cannibalism, a zombi subarctic, the phantom of the hunger, a disorder of personality, a cheap and wild creature or simply the loneliness which haunts wood for the lost hunters, nobody is the same one after the meeting of Windigo.

See too

Internal bonds

Cryptozoologie
Amerindian North-Amerindians
in the United States

Simetierre of stephen king

Sources

Original text in English by Gained Joseph, student of history at the University Laurentienne
Coleman, Loren and Patrick Huyghe. The Field Guides To Bigfoot, Yeti And Other Mystery Primates Worldwide, New York, Avon Books, Inc., 1999
Columbo, John Robert. Mysterious Canada, Toronto, Doubleday, 1988
Columbo, John Robert. Windigo: Year Anthology Off Fact And Fantastic Fiction, Saskatoon, Western Producer Books Meadow, 1982
Green, John. One The Tracks Off The Sasquatch, Seattle, Publishing Ltd., 1968
Morriseau, Norval. Legends Off My People: The Great Odjibway, Toronto, The Ryerson Near, 1965
Zullo, Al. Mysteries Off The Unexplained, Watermill Near, 1996

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